The government is being urged to tell schools how and when they can apply to the £40 million hardship fund it announced as part of the teacher pay offer.
The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) says the government must “provide the mechanism and criteria for the hardship fund as soon as possible”, warning that some schools are facing “particularly severe challenges”.
The Department for Education and all four major teaching unions jointly announced two weeks ago that teachers would receive a 6.5 per cent pay rise from September 2023.
As part of the pay announcement, the DfE said it would assign an extra £40 million to the existing hardship fund available “to support those schools facing the greatest financial challenges”.
While many schools say the teacher pay offer is manageable, there are concerns that smaller primaries will struggle to cover the increased payments.
Tes understands that the hardship fund will not be provided through a new funding stream. Instead, the DfE will expand the support available via existing routes to schools that find themselves in financial difficulties.
For academies, this is via the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), which provides some financial support to academies facing the most difficult circumstances.
For maintained schools, the money would come via local authorities. The DfE is exploring how this would work with part of the £40 million pot.
Teacher pay: how will schools get hardship cash?
However, the DfE has not yet clarified the criteria for the expanded support, or when the extra money will be available.
Schools minister Nick Gibb told the Commons Education Select Committee last Tuesday that the department was “still working on the criteria that schools will need to fulfil to apply for the fund”.
When asked by Tes whether the criteria had yet been finalised and when it was going to be published, the DfE declined to confirm.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL - which called off its strike ballot last week after members voted to accept the pay award - said members “breathe a weary sigh when they sense vagueness from the government about when crucial measures will appear”.
He added that “experience tells us that it can take a very long time indeed”.
Mr Barton said: “We would urge the government to provide the mechanism and criteria for the hardship fund as soon as possible and to ensure that this funding pot is accessible to all schools in need of this financial support.
“The funding situation is very tight for schools and trusts in general, and because of the variability of school funding and circumstances there are a number facing particularly severe challenges.
“These schools and trusts require certainty that they are able to access the hardship fund and on the funding support they will receive.”
The government decided to accept the independent School Teachers’ Review Body’s (STRB) recommendation of a 6.5 per cent pay rise for teachers in England from September this year.
This is a bigger pay rise than the DfE had originally proposed in February (3.5 per cent) but for the second year it is less than the “fully funded, inflation-plus pay increase” demanded by teaching unions.
The results from ballots on the teacher pay offer from the three other main teaching unions - the NEU, NASUWT and NAHT - are expected on Monday.
